


Common Tongue

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Altar Sex, Body Worship, Cock Worship, F/M, Light Dirty Talk, Oral Sex, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Praise Kink, Sacrilege, Self-Esteem Issues, Teasing, Trans Claude von Riegan, Trans Male Character, Vaginal Fingering, and The Weirdass Interplay Thereof, faith issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 22:29:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21233306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: With Claude, she has never felt so holy.





	Common Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know how tall an altar is so let's just assume altars of seiros are like, table height.

Six years ago, the statue of the Goddess loomed benevolently in the Garreg Mach chapel, clad all in gilding and white marble. Marianne would stand before its visage and stare, hands clasped, as if waiting for a miracle. Her prayers for death always came after the sun went down, after she’d changed for bed and brushed her hair and all the things good girls are supposed to do— in the daytime, she prayed for good weather, and her father’s health, and luck in the coming battles. A part of her prayed for forgiveness from her sins. Another part prayed for a miracle to convince her that she was more than her curse. Yet another, the part that Marianne unfortunately found herself listening to most often, prayed not for death, but for a world without her in it, where Marianne von Edmund had been seamlessly removed like erasing a light pencil sketch.  
  
Five years ago, the statue was hit in the battle for Garreg Mach. Marianne had been there, leading injured soldiers into the chapel for medical treatment. An errant meteor spell had fired from the battlefield; smashed through the ceiling and part of the wall and sent stone crumbling down in chunks, slamming onto the floor and cracking the tile with the horrible, dust-filled grinding of stone on stone. When it cleared, the Goddess had fallen from the pedestal, Her form broken in half. Her face still smiled serenely, Her hands still open and welcoming Her children into Her embrace, even face-down on the floor of Her holiest space.  
  
Since then, thieves had taken the gilding and cracked apart the marble casing, stealing parts of it to sell, leaving a craggy granite block in its place. Now it sits beneath the hole in the ceiling, and even as an ugly block of stone, it carries the same grace that the Goddess always did. It’s bathed in starlight now, the same starlight that filters through the dust swirling in the summer night breeze. The same starlight that cards its fingers through Claude’s hair and lights up the curve of his cheek.  
  
The night is warm, and yet the stone of the altar is cold against Marianne’s naked skin, even through the silk of Claude’s golden cape. She doesn’t mind— in fact, it’s a blessing to her flushed skin. She’s burning up, and it’s quite unlikely she’ll cool down any time soon. Not when Claude touches her like he does, when he kisses her neck and touches her clit, his hand covering her crotch but his touch so frustratingly distant from where it really matters. Not with little red hickeys on her neck, her breast, her thighs. Not with her hands gripping his shirt, with her knees trembling, her mouth making gasps and moans and other noises that definitely don’t belong in a holy place.  
  
She’s always told herself that she doesn’t deserve pleasure, that to allow herself to feel anything good is wrong, and wrapped it in believing in a Goddess that looks down, cold and impartial, upon a sinner who thinks praying for death will save her from her curse. Marianne doesn’t find herself praying for her own death as of late, but it’s hard to shake feeling cursed, feeling forsaken, feeling _wrong_.  
  
But Claude— with Claude, she has never felt so holy.  
  
The space where they stood was the pulpit, once; where Archbishop Rhea gave her sermons, where the entire congregation would face when they stood for hymns and prayers. Marianne doesn’t remember when or why they came to stand here, but here they are, embracing, kissing, moaning; various articles of clothing shed and dropped carelessly onto the floor. Claude’s half-dressed, his coat discarded and his shirt half-open and untucked, while Marianne’s long since shed all but her stockings. Her hair is down, and it’s already a mess, like it always is if she doesn’t tame it with a small army of hairpins. She’s going to hate herself for it when she returns to her senses and goes to bed, and has to brush out the tangles— so it goes.  
  
“Hey,” he says, forehead pressed to hers, his voice a gentle murmur as if even he’s afraid to disturb the energy of the Goddess. He slows his hand and leaves Marianne trembling, straining to keep herself from rubbing against his hand. “How do you feel?”  
  
“Good,” she promises. “It feels good. C-could you…”  
  
Claude chuckles, teasing her clit just enough to make her suck in a breath. “I love these sounds you make,” he says, kissing the orbit of her ear. “I don’t even need to make you beg for it. Though I know you would.”  
  
“Claude,” she whines.  
  
“I know, I know.” Marianne can feel his smile against her cheek. She really is about to beg for it until he deepens his touch, with his thumb on her clit and his middle finger inside her slick heat. Sweat beads on her skin. She feels his touch inside her— she’s tried her own, on occasion, but her own can never compare to Claude’s. Not because his hands are big or his fingers are thick, but just because he’s Claude.  
  
“You,” he murmurs, kissing his way down her neck to her breast. “Are so beautiful.”  
  
She flushes. “You think so?”  
  
“Quite often,” he says. He traces his free hand up her shape until it’s at her breast as well. There’s enough that it spills between his fingers like he’s trying to hold a bag of gelatin. “I mean, why do you think we’re here?”  
  
“I— _ohh_,” she moans, cut off when Claude’s finger hits that exact right spot that always gets her. Words stop mattering. Her breath hitches and her back arches when she comes to Claude’s hand, his mouth on her neck and his finger still determinedly working inside. Lightning dances in front of her eyes, moans falling from her lips without regard for where they are or the Goddess watching or anything at all. Seiros could’ve called down holy fire to scour life from the earth and wipe out humanity, and Marianne wouldn’t have cared.  
  
If Marianne weren’t already on the altar, her knees would’ve given out. As it is, Claude catches her, keeps her steady as she slumps forward. Her head rests on his chest. He’s warm. She can hear his heartbeat.  
  
“Good girl,” he purrs. She shivers despite the flush in her skin. Claude knows just what to say to make her melt— probably because she told him. Half of her wants to just go to sleep, but the other half? The other half knows better.  
  
Claude pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “How are you feeling? Do you want to keep going?”  
  
Marianne nods. “May I…”  
  
He kisses her, gentle and sweet, and Marianne leans into the kiss with longing she’d forgotten she could feel. She wants to touch him, to make him feel as good as he does her. She can’t hope to— even now, it’s hard to think of anything but the fear of doing it wrong, and Claude can tell she hesitates.  
  
“Of course,” he says. “You always make me feel so good, Marianne. I trust you.”  
  
She smiles gratefully. That’s the other thing about Claude— He _trusts_ her, trusts her enough to share the burden he carries, and Marianne of all people knows how difficult that is. One day she’ll be in a place where she be vulnerable enough to let him see all of her own burdens, but that day hasn’t come. And yet, that’s fine, because Claude is patient. He’s ready whenever she’s able to let herself share, and he’ll help her bear the weight. Marianne wouldn’t go so far as to say he saved her, or anything like that, but it’s certainly a lot easier to be kind to herself when she has a reminder that people care about her. (Funny how that works.)  
  
She lowers herself to her knees, her hands on his belt line. Claude leans against the altar like Marianne had just been doing, and it feels appropriate, to her and her guilt-stained relationship with worship and holiness, that they’d be doing this in the holiest place of all.  
  
His pants come down, his smallclothes. His hand rests on her head, and in books Marianne’s read, the male love interest might grab the heroine’s hair, tug it as he guides it to his shaft, but Marianne’s never liked that idea much, so Claude is gentle. A suggestion; a request. Even tenderness, as his thumb rubs over her temple. It’s loose enough she could pull away, if she wanted to.  
  
It’s a good thing she doesn’t.  
  
A trail of dark hair leads from Claude’s chest, down his stomach, over his navel, down to his groin; curly and coarse, so unlike the hair on his head. His thighs are strong and toned. Marianne can feel the tension when she touches him, while her hand goes from his hip down to the side of his thigh. Goosebumps rise on his bare skin.  
  
He likes it when she starts high. She puts her lips below his navel and kisses there, then down, past where his smalls would cover, through the thick curls covering his nethers. Her nose fills with the heady smell of his anticipation, or maybe sweat. Maybe a mix of the two.  
  
He lets out a breath when her mouth meets his folds. She feels his fingers in her hair, and his pulse under her tongue as she brings it up to meet the crown jewel— his clit, flushed and pink, poking out from its little hood. It’s maybe the size of the end of her index finger, when it’s drawn out as far as it’ll go. Marianne thinks it’s perfect.  
  
She takes him into her mouth, and his breath hitches when she does. His fingers comb through her hair. “Just like that,” he breathes. “_Oh_, that’s good.”  
  
It’s the encouragement, more than anything, that thrills her; the reassurance that she’s wanted, that her presence is a welcome one. She breathes him in while she sucks gently, rubbing her tongue up the underside in that way she knows he loves. Her hands grip at his thighs for purchase as she pushes her face further in, buried between his legs. The first moan that falls from his lips, shaped around her name, sends desire in an arc down her spine and to her own heat, forming a tugging in her stomach that whines for attention despite knowing it won’t come.  
  
His hips tremble like he’s struggling not to thrust into her mouth. Both his hands are in her hair now, keeping her head firmly between his legs, and she’s not going to complain at all. In fact, she welcomes it, following his guidance in an insatiable craving to hear the words that thrill her so.  
  
Cladue is nothing if not accommodating, at least to her. He lets out a breathy chuckle, affectionately rubbing her head like one would praise a horse, which would greatly confuse her if she weren’t mostly-naked, on her knees, with her head between his legs and her folds growing wetter with every sound he makes. “Good girl,” he tells her, and then chuckles again when he feels her moan around his clit. She feels a pang in her nethers that makes her acutely aware of how empty she feels, how much she needs someone’s touch.  
  
“It’s so cute, how wet it makes you,” he teases, pushing her bangs back from her face and looking down at her with a gentle smirk. (Claude teases, but there’s love in his voice. He’d never say anything to her in a way she didn’t want.) “Do you like having your lips around me, Marianne? Do you like my cock in your mouth?”  
  
Marianne would relish what he says any day, but in the house of the Goddess, a place of solemnity and devotion to a being greater than mortal desires, it makes her heart race. She’s always been pious, and tried to live her life as the pious should, which probably means not putting sexual pleasure above her devotion, but in the moment, she doesn’t even care. Perhaps it’s because she knows that this very ephemeral, very mortal thing is the closest she’ll get to divine.  
  
She moans, looking at him with her eyes half-lidded. The hole in the ceiling is behind him, and the moon is out, lining him in silver and starlight. He’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, touched, tasted, experienced. Nothing but the Goddess can truly be holy, but she thinks Claude gets pretty close.  
  
He smiles, and her heart flutters. His thumb rubs across her cheek in a moment of genuine tenderness that feels so sweet to her, amongst the teasing. She loves him, and when he looks at her like that, she feels a hint of what it might be like to love herself, too.  
  
“Good girl,” he purrs. Marianne shivers, losing the seal of her lips around his cock when her jaw goes slack, her desperate moans sounding from around his pleasure in her mouth. She grips his thighs, her short nails pressing c-shaped divots into his flesh. She feels her racing heartbeat in the crux of her thighs. She’s gone from her knees to the floor by now, her knees apart and her bare skin on the stone, back arched up and neck craned to get as close to Claude as possible and yet remain still. And she’s trying, by the Goddess, she’s trying, but her hips twitch, bringing tiny movements of her slick folds against the floor and a tiny hint of the friction she wants, needs, but she still craves so much more.  
  
His hand comes to cradle the back of her head. Obediently, she puts her mouth back around him, sucking with a fervor born from her own arousal. His sounds of pleasure build, syllables of words like gods and please and yes, and what might be her name, which has never sounded sweeter from him than in moments like this.  
  
Claude swears in a language Marianne doesn’t speak, shuddering and tensing his grip on her head, involuntarily pulling her closer. He’s close— Marianne can tell by the noises he makes through his clenched jaw. It comes through him in shuddering waves, his clit twitching beneath Marianne’s tongue, and Marianne keeps sucking, keeps licking, until he slowly relaxes, the tension leaving one part of him at a time.  
  
He lets out his breath. He winces, gently pushing Marianne’s head from its place between his legs. But his hand is still gentle, and he smiles as he pushes her hair back from her face.  
  
He guides her back to standing and kisses her forehead, gently taking her hand and giving it a tender squeeze. “You did great,” he says. “How are you feeling?”  
  
She makes herself form a coherent sentence. “I’m alright,” she says. “You?”  
  
“A little tender, you know how it is,” he chuckles. He shifts, lifting himself from the altar and pulling his pants back into place. He yawns. “Ready for bed, really.”  
  
“So soon?” Marianne asks, without thinking.  
  
Claude quirks an eyebrow, and then glances down at her groin, and gives her a grin. “Well, I can’t just leave you hanging,” he says. “Come here.”  
  
He turns her so she’s the one on the altar once more. He’s moving slowly, probably specifically to tease her, and Marianne wants to whine for him to hurry it up despite knowing it’ll make him move slower. He kisses her, tasting the salt on her lips.  
  
“Claude…” she says. She bites her lip to stop herself from begging. She will admit, though, that the anticipation is almost enough to make her come before Claude can even try.  
  
“Oh, alright, you’ve earned it,” he says. “You were getting worked up that whole time, were you? Missing my fingers that much?"  
  
Marianne whimpers without really meaning to, and when she comes down from her high she’ll hate how pathetic she sounds. “Yes,” she says. “Claude, please, I… I need you. Touch me? Please?”  
  
“Whatever you want,” he promises. His finger rests on her clit, still flushed and sensitive from the agonizing wait. Electricity arcs through her body like a storm, every feeling amplified. The part of her that’s not consumed by lust (a part that’s getting smaller by the second) thinks this had better be the best orgasm of her life.  
  
She trembles, clutching the fabric of Claude’s shirt. His fingers slip inside of her easily, slick with her arousal, and the sigh of relief she breathes at finally being relieved of that aching emptiness is almost enough to make her come all on its own. As it is, he rubs her clit, strokes her from the inside, almost, _almost_—  
  
Marianne sees stars.  
  
Claude is there to catch her when she slumps forward. He’s so gentle, so loving as he takes his fingers back out and wipes them off on his cape. He kisses her as the stars fade. And she sees more stars, but they’re real stars through the hole in the chapel ceiling, silhouetting Claude and complementing how he shines, like little silver accents to his gleaming gold.  
  
“Alright, _now_ I think it’s bedtime,” he decides. “I’ll let you get dressed.”  
  
Marianne nods, still a little dazed. She stumbles when her feet hit the floor, and she’d fall if Claude hadn’t steadied her. She picks up her discarded clothing and dresses enough to not cause a scandal if she’s seen in public, though she’ll confess she gets a few buttons wrong, and gives up on some others, not to mention her hair. Claude is lucky— no matter how much she puts her fingers through it, it still just looks dashingly wind-mussed.  
  
Claude looks up. “Aw, shit,” he says, just as the clock tower chimes five. “Well, this took longer than I’d thought.”  
  
“Should we have just gone to our room?” Marianne guesses.  
  
“Probably.” He rubs the back of his neck, then takes her hand. “Come on, if we hurry, we’ll be back there before Cyril can spot us.”  
  
And as he leads her through the castle, quicker than would’ve been allowed back when they were students, Marianne feels a laugh, a real laugh, bubble up from inside her chest.  
  
For once, she lets it.  


* * *

  
  
It’s eight, and the monastery has assembled for breakfast. Things are still pretty lean, it being wartime at all, but they get by. As long as everyone eats, even if it’s nothing fancy, Claude will take the win.  
  
Someone shoves open the doors from the hall with a heavy slam. Cyril stands in the middle of the doorway, not quite looking angry, but definitely not in the mood for polite conversation (an expression Claude’s often noted on Shamir).  
  
“Alright,” he demands. “_Which_ of you _horny bastards_ left _butt-prints_ on the _altar?”_

**Author's Note:**

> as i've written it here, claude's been on Fantasy Boy Sauce for a few years and had top surgery, but no bottom surgery. i touched very briefly on his downstairs situation in 'starlight,' but i didn't think it was super super important to have a specific visual of what his bits looked like n i've always found it tacky to actually state the size of a dick, but then i was like "you know what i'm gonna reclaim the concept of cock worship" and it made more sense for it to be from marianne's point of view, so. this was born and now you have some idea of claude's nasty bits. anyway hope it was enjoyable. sorry cis guys cock worship belongs to trans men now
> 
> find me on my public twitter @detectiveryanz. you can also find me on my nsfw twitter, @ryman69man which is where i put horny stuff as well as some trans stuff and the occasional vent or tmi post. 18+ only, obviously.


End file.
